Containers for storing, collecting or transporting liquids are widely used in e.g. the food industry or in the medical field. In the medical field, containers are frequently used for e.g. collecting or storing of body liquids or liquid medications but also for delivery of a liquid to a patient. Such a delivered liquid may be for e.g. intravenous, flushing, or rectal enema. A liquid to be delivered to a patient may also be known as an irrigation liquid.
Administrating an irrigation liquid is a common medical procedure whereby liquid is injected into a bodily cavity, such as into the rectum and lower intestine of a patient in order to induce bowel movement. The need for such a procedure typically arises in patients suffering from certain physical ailments in which voluntary bowel control is impaired or when the bowel needs to be cleaned before e.g. a coloscopy or a surgical operation. To this end, irrigation systems may be used e.g. by people suffering from spinal cord injuries, spina bifida or multiple sclerosis. For such users, irrigation may improve quality of life by preventing constipation, reducing time spent for bowel emptying procedures, reducing fecal incontinence, and by increasing independency in general.
Irrigation is nowadays often performed outside medical attendance premises, such as in the patient's home, and is also often performed by the patient himself, i.e. by self-administration. Hereby, the patient need to do multiple tasks at the same time, or immediately following on each other, such as inserting the probe in a correct position, adequately fixating the probe in the bodily cavity, enabling the liquid to be discharged for irrigation and discharge a correct dose of irrigation liquid, and removing the probe after use. Further, many of the users of irrigation systems have reduced dexterity, which makes the operation even more cumbersome.
It is further of importance that the irrigation system is of a limited size, and portable. Portability of the irrigation system is important to disabled persons who are not hospitalised or bed-ridden if they are to live as normal a life as possible. This is particularly important if they travel away from their home, for instance, to someone else's home or if they stay in a hotel. In this situation, they need to be able to deal with their bowel function easily.
Various irrigation systems are known in the art, such as is disclosed in WO 2008/087220, WO 2009/092380, WO 03/030969, WO 2011/023196 and WO 03/030968. However, despite the attempts to make these devices user friendly, all of these irrigation devices are still relatively large and complicated to use, especially for self-administration of the irrigation liquid, and also, most of these known devices are made of many different components and are relatively costly to produce.
For delivery of irrigation liquid stored in a container a certain pressure is often required in the container to enable a flow of liquid from the container. In some cases the container, for example for intravenous insertion, is hanged above the patient. In other cases the container is pressurized by external means such as physical deformation of the container or by pumping of air into the container.
In many cases it is desirable that the container may be collapsible in order to save space before and after usage. In particular, this is desirable when storing the container prior to use or when transporting containers to a user.
In US 2010/0174252 a container for rectal irrigation is disclosed. The disclosed container relies on air to be pumped into the reservoir in order to provide sufficient pressure for delivery of liquid.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,641,999 discloses another container for use as an irrigation liquid reservoir. It is arranged such that it may stand up on a rigid bottom portion and it has an outlet tube at the bottom portion. The container as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,641,999 is collapsible.
Another container to be used for irrigation is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,942,578. It is a collapsible container comprising seams for holding the container together. A hole is arranged for adding or withdrawing liquid form the container.
The known collapsible containers suffer from a number of drawbacks. For example, it would be desirable to allow a space efficient storage of the container without compromising the stability of the container, while allowing the container to be in a standing-up configuration when in use. Furthermore, it is desirable to allow an efficient withdrawal of the entire volume of liquid contained in the container, without leaving unnecessary residues when in use. It is also desirable to reduce the risk of continuing pumping when the container is empty, or almost empty. It is further desirable to facilitate handling of the container, such as filling of liquid into the container, for users having reduced dexterity. It is also desirable to have a container which is reusable, and which may easily be emptied, dried and compacted between uses. Still further, there is a need for containers of this type which can be made relatively cost-efficiently.
Thus, there is a need for an improved collapsible container, in particular for medical use, such as for holding and delivering of irrigation liquid.